Most Formidable
by Wind Spark
Summary: "Medusa," he whispered against her throat. "Please. I want to keep it," he begged her, and she smiled cruelly and tugged at his hair. "Why not?" she replied. Yes, she would. She would have the baby. And then, she would let him kill it. Side Stein/Marie


When Medusa learns that she is pregnant she isn't overly concerned.

She's dealt with babies before. Though science and her research usually kept her from association with men, there were occasional men, magicians, almost-kishins, sometimes even meisters, and she had seen each one as a test, a time for play, to have some fun, and to exercise her skills. Sometimes, things got out of hand.

Three times. Three times she had to resort to the spell every witch was taught as soon as she turned fourteen. Three times she spent the weekend at a small farm outside the city as her stomach was racked with pain and she bled out a life into the bathtub and calmly washed it away, thoroughly cleansed.

It was never a problem. Maybe the first time she had felt apprehension, nervousness at exactly how much it would hurt her, and then it was over, and she went on as if nothing had happened. And to her, nothing really all that important had.

She had merely destroyed the lump of tissues that, given time and opportunity, would eventually grow into a child.

Chrona had been a fluke, an experiment that Medusa was determined to see never occurred again. The baby was small, she hadn't realized, and by the time a bump started to show she was four months along, a guarantee for an excruciating cleansing that she did not want to go through, and well, she had been looking for an ideal test subject anyways.

A pity that Chrona had been such a miserable failure. Medusa would have had no qualms about killing him.

And it would have been the exact same way with this one, if it hadn't been for the way she had discovered the news, and the resulting annoyance that had occurred.

She hadn't discovered it with a test, or with the usual mood swings, dizziness, cravings, or morning sickness that were the common signs.

Stein had knelt down in front of her body one morning, placed his hands on the flat, bare stomach of her new body and said, with a bemused grin, "There's a little soul inside of you."

* * *

Marie blames herself completely for what happened. Medusa may have helped with defeating her sister, (earning her a temporary promise of truce among the DWMA students and faculty) but even if her ultimate goal of returning Asura to power was not a success, one of her smaller, impossibly more distressing goals had become a painful reality.

Stein was gone. The insanity that had lain dormant inside of him for years had reared its ugly head again, and Marie had been powerless to stop it, when obviously, she should have been able to help him.

She tired, she really did. She tried so hard, so, so hard, and all she had to show for it was a broken, splintered heart left after Stein had blinked at her one morning, a sick smile on his face, and asked who she was before followed Medusa out the front door.

There's no proof that it's the witch's fault, but Marie is convinced Medusa did something, reached Stein somehow, planted some idea that she was unable to discover and root out in time.

There is no proof. She went to Lord Death, begged him, pleaded with Spirit and the others for assistance, but they'd all given up. Stein had made an almost completely recovery after Arachne's defeat, but then came the slow downward spiral back into madness, worse and worse and worse, and one by one, they all let him go.

"Marie," Spirit says, a gentle hand placed on her shoulder. "There wasn't anything you could do."

Medusa smirks at her from her place at Stein's side, her arm wrapped around his body possessively, a snake's coil in Marie's eyes, ever constricting, tighter, tighter, tighter, till it crushes him and leaves nothing but a shell.

"It's not your fault."

Stein's eyes, wide and blank, slightly crazed, a quick glance around at them all, maybe a longer look at her (or is she imagining things?) and then, ultimately, back to the witch.

"We tried, we all tried, but Stein…"

Both of them, together, side by side, walking out of Death City and away from her forever. They fade quickly from view. The weight of his glasses is like lead in her pocket.

"You have to let him go."

So she goes home to his silent, patchwork house, sobs into his pillow for an hour, and does.

* * *

It quickly becomes apparent to her that Stein will be a road block in the destruction of their child.

"I don't want you to kill it," he says with an almost-frown on his face.

"But Stein," she sighs, "It will only be a problem for us." She pets his head and moves over to the counter, mixing herbs into a poison that would devour even a Reaper.

"I want it."

Every argument she devises, he crumbles.

"It will cry."

"There is already crying in my head."

"It will wake you up at all hours needing nourishment."

"I don't sleep very much."

"It will need clothing."

(He smirks at this one.)

"I like sewing."

"It will need an education."

"I was a teacher once."

"It will rely on you for everything."

"A nice change, considering I always rely on you."

"It can give you nothing."

"It can give me something to do."

"Is that all you want it for?" she asks, startled.

"Maybe," he grins. "Maybe I just want a test subject."

"I'll get you something then."

He shakes his head, confused now.

"No." He grows angry. "I want this one!"

She goes to him then, wraps her madness around him, chokes his defiance in her arms. His insanity wants her. It does not want the child.

"But Stein," she murmurs against his lips. "Don't you want me to be happy? Don't you want it to be like it has been?"

He blinks, dazed, and nods. She captures his lips to seal the promise.

Later, over his newest subject of operation, he thinks that without variation, even insanity can loose its enticing appeal.

* * *

She had planned to perform the spell that week, but problems come up, an accident in the lab causes extensive damage, and Stein subtly distracts her from the task with a determination that she would have found endearing in any other situation.

She catches him studying her stomach when he thinks she doesn't see. At night she sometimes wakes to his hands on her belly, and she is sure that even when she doesn't wake up he is still watching the little soul. He doesn't do it when she's awake.

She begins to resent the bunch of tissues growing inside her.

_Bastard, _she thinks to the child. _Everything was fine before you came along. And if I kill you now, who knows how Stein will react._

She knows she could probably have done it and gotten away with it a week before. Stein would have been depressed, mopey, puppy-dog like for a few days, and then would have forgotten all about it and things would have gone on normally.

But then The Bump appeared.

Stein's distracted preoccupation with the little glowing ball of energy in her stomach is replaced with mindless obsession as her stomach swells under her clothes and she spends the morning bent over the toilet.

He begins talking to it, holding meaningless conversations with The Bump, talking about cellular biology and neural surgery and the advancement of physical capabilities during soul resonance. He whispers to it at night, and touches it sometimes during the day.

And then one day he asks her who Marie is.

Medusa nearly chokes on her own saliva before sitting down hard in a chair and asking him carefully what he's talking about.

"Marie," he says, head tilted in amusement at her reaction. "Her name keeps popping up in my head. There's a house too, and something soft, warm. Bright colors, and stitches. A computer. Do you know who she is?"

"No," she says coldly, and turns away.

Medusa realizes that her control over him is slipping. He's coming back to himself.

Her own madness rises to the surface, and she feels a brief but intense urge to take a knife to her stomach.

* * *

She tells him she will kill it. She wakes him early one morning and tells him that today she will kill their child. There is a cruel rush through her soul when she realizes that he has spent the night with his hand covering her stomach.

He begs her then.

"Please," he whispers over and over again. "Please, Medusa, please, let it live."

"Why should I? Why should I let something survive that has taken you from me?"

His eyes widen in something akin to guilt, and he curls up into himself.

_Please. Please._

He kisses her then, pleading in the only way he can think of, pressing fever hot lips up and down her collarbone, across her shoulders, her arms, and he begs her.

"Medusa," he whispers against her throat. "Please. I want to keep it," he begs her, and she considers, a teasing smile on her face. She tugs his hair, just hard enough for it to hurt.

Then she shrugs.

"Why not?"

He jerks upright, leaning over her, wary, startled, and she grins.

"It can live. I can go through all the little inconveniences of childbirth, though I really had hoped that Chrona was a one time deal, I'm willing to do it for you."

He is suspicious, but she can see a hopeful glint in his eyes.

"Yes, I can go through childbirth…"

He relaxes on top of her.

"But after it's born, Stein," she whispers gently, looping her arms around his neck, "I want you to kill it."

His body stiffens in her arms. Everything about him is still. She ignores it, continues on as if nothing has happened, rubbing a hand along his bare shoulder.

A single word escapes his mouth, a word that holds no feeling, no emotion, nothing but a realization.

"Oh."

Because Dr. Stein is still a genius, and even with the insanity in control of his body, he knows the games that she plays.

* * *

He will obey her because he lives for her, because she holds his insanity in a kind of check that prevents it from eating him alive, because he could never control it himself, because he wants blood and death and _completion _as much as she does.

He will obey her. The child will die. And the guilt will consume the remains of his sanity and his will like a wildfire.

While Stein seems to become quieter, more withdrawn, Medusa is almost giddy with expectation during the last few months.

* * *

She is tired, the hospital room is annoyingly white, and all she really wants to do is sleep. So the wails of her youngest child are not a welcomed distraction.

"Stein," she moans miserably, "Take this thing and make it shut up."

Stein has been sitting their in one of the stiff hospital chairs all day, since they arrived earlier that morning, all through the procedure, silent and unusually intense. He leans forward now, takes the child into his arms with an ease that Medusa finds disconcerting, and cradles his daughter, rocking her gently until she quiets.

"You seem comfortable with her," she says sharply, disapproving, and he shrugs.

"I would baby-sit Maka when she was little. I'm used to it."

There is very little insanity left in his voice, and she grimaces.

"Wouldn't you like to dissect it?" she hisses softly, and he contemplates the question quietly.

"Maybe."

And then he smiles, grins, and chuckles, soon laughing so hard that Medusa calls a nurse to take the baby before he drops it and the wailing starts over again. She does not notice the undercurrent of relief in his laughter.

She smiles as the laughter dissolves into nothing more than an echo of shivers that course through his body.

She still has him.

"Tomorrow," she says, "I want you to kill the child."

Stein regards her calmly, smiling.

"I know."

So she closes her eyes, reassured, and sleeps.

When she wakes up late the next evening, both Stein and the baby are gone.

* * *

Marie wakes from a dreamless sleep to the sound of rain pounding on the roof, thunder rumbling in the background, and the shrill ring of the doorbell.

_Who could it be? _she wonders, pulling on a pale yellow robe and shoving her feet into soft, pink slippers_. Some kind of emergency. One of the students? Or is Lord Death just being his perky self, forgetting that normal people need sleep?_

"Coming," she shouts to the door as the bell rings again.

When she pulls open the door she is rather surprised to find Stein standing there, hunched over against the rain, holding his coat in his arms, and with an expression of utter hopelessness clouding his features.

"Marie."

She lets out an undignified squeak and clutches the doorframe to keep herself from falling. A little part of her brain absently counts off the months he's been gone, and she realizes that she hasn't even seen him in just over a year.

She takes in his thin, haggard appearance at the same time that she realizes that she dearly would very much like to kill him. She takes breath to scream, but his miserable voice stops her.

"I'm sorry."

She sputters, indignant.

"Well… I should think so! You-you… idiot!"

He flinches, but remains silent, letting the rain drip through his hair as she lets out the pain of her failure and his desertion.

"Do you have any idea… Do you know how much it hurt… Why did you… Damn you, Franken!" she screams, lashing out, a single punch that sends him reeling, stumbling slightly as he curls himself carefully around the little bundle in his arms.

And then the baby starts crying.

Marie's first thought does not give Stein the benefit of the doubt.

"Stein, whose baby is that? Where did you get it?"

He looks up then, glares at her incredulously, eyes sharp and clear, so unlike the last time she was him that Marie's knees weaken, and snaps, "I'm not a kidnapper, Marie. She's mine."

"Who…" She clears her throat and tries again. "Who's the mother?"

He is guilty, miserable again.

"Medusa."

Marie nods.

"Well, I guess you'd better bring her in."

He stands there in the rain, staring at her, the baby squirming and murmuring as Stein adjusts his grip on her, settling her again.

Marie beckons, and he crosses the threshold of what used to be his home, cringing and flinching at the bright light of a colorful lamp in the corner.

"Here, let me see her," Marie says, and Stein hesitates again before uncurling his arms from their protective cradle around the girl and handing her to Marie. He's kept her wrapped up in his coat to keep her from the rain, and Marie's eyes soften undeniably as Stein hands her his daughter.

Her skin is soft and pink, her eyes closed in slumber, one of her little hands closed in a fist near her tiny lips, and a tuft of pale, silvery gold hair covers her head like bird's down.

Marie can't help but coo over her, overcome by the sheer adorableness of the baby.

"Awww… She's so _cute!_ What's her name?"

Stein smiles, relieved, at the light that's returned to Marie's eyes.

"She doesn't have one yet. You could… help me pick one?"

She regards him calmly and says, "I'll think about it. Go sit on the couch, I'll just get a blanket for her."

It takes a little longer than she thought to get the blanket, and when she returns to the living room she finds him slumped over on the couch, fast asleep, evidently trusting enough to take a nap while she has his daughter.

He wakes up with a start as she touches his shoulder, breathing hard and looking ready for a fight. She eyes him steadily, rocking the baby slowly.

"I really am sorry," he says after nearly a minute of silence. "I would never have done it if I had a choice."

He finally meets her eyes, his weary, exhausted, and full of guilt. She wordlessly hands him the baby and sits down beside him on the purple couch.

Then she hugs him around the shoulders, one armed, gentle, and he sinks against her as they sit for several minutes, silent. She stands and reaches into a pocket of her robe, pulling out a familiar pair of glasses.

"This is the second time you've come back. Don't let there be a third," she scolds quietly, and he takes the glasses and smiles, slides them onto his face, letting her pull him to his feet and lead him to the bedroom.

He smirks.

"Of course not."

* * *

Well. I'm back again. I've been gone because of a small emergency in my life involving a flash drive holding all my writing that happened to break. Like, _break_, break. I nearly died.

But, here it is. Soul Eater is my current obsession, and the relationship of Stein, Marie, and Medusa. Yeah...

Not much to say. Please leave feedback. I'm very, very unsure about this one and a little depressed concerning just how differently it turned out from how I wanted it. Tell me what'cha think people, pretty please.

And someone write some Stein/Marie, I'm begging here! Not enough love for those two if you want my opinion.

Ah, well. Time for sleep.


End file.
